


Cohabitation

by TruantPunk



Series: A Fortune for your Disaster [2]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Chair Sex, Domestic, Friendship/Love, Healing, Hiatus era, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prostitution, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-04 09:38:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18341048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TruantPunk/pseuds/TruantPunk
Summary: Patrick moved back to LA after a few months of feeling settled in Chicago. For all that he claimed Chicago was his forever-home, it had been where he’d hurt himself the most.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I guess I didn't feel like this story had come to a natural ending, so here is a sequel ;)

Patrick moved back to LA after a few months of feeling settled in Chicago. For all that he claimed Chicago was his forever-home, it had been where he’d hurt himself the most. It held too much angst for him. He couldn’t look at his little house without remembering the decisions he made in that time, during the lowest point, when he figured escorting was the only thing he was actually decent at. 

He’d had better times in the aftermath. He’d got back into producing. He’d half dated Michael, who was kind and who had helped but even that hadn’t lasted. But it wasn’t enough and he felt stuck in the ether, stuck between the past and the future with no way through it. So, he spoke to Joe and Marie because they were his people now, the ones that knew everything, or at least could sort of understand where he was coming from.

He found a little house in Studio City after maybe three days of online browsing. It was all one floor, a gated off backyard. It came with a pool that Patrick wouldn’t ever use, but it was brand new for him. It was a fresh start. 

His previous house in LA had finally sold the month before so his shit had been in storage for a while, but he had it all sent over to the new place. No one knew he had moved back here. No one outside family and Joe and Marie. He didn’t like big announcements anymore, but this would do. Bands and musicians were a dime a dozen in this part of town; he could build up his production career and fade out the fame. 

In a way it was easier to be anonymous here, where everyone else was so desperate for fame. He had a familiar face to some, but only because of the band. The anxiety about being found out for his _other_ career had faded somewhat. At night, when he couldn’t sleep, he’d tell himself he wasn’t that good at it. Nearly all the men that had paid him had been well used to hiring sex workers. He was just one out of a continuous line of whores. He couldn’t remember them, why would they think of him?

He lived around boxes for a few weeks. He shipped down his most important shit from Chicago, but aside from clothes and instruments, most of his stuff stayed in their boxes. He would unpack. Eventually. Work picked up quickly. He preferred to work with unknowns, ones that wouldn’t want to reminisce about the past, or talk about Patrick’s future. He would work in the studio with the band in the day, and late afternoon he’d roam around, looking for somewhere to eat. He found a bookstore and found himself in the self-help section. He’d never been the type to read that kind of shit, but he grabbed a few copies. One on PTSD, one on building self-esteem. When he took them to the register, the girl made a passing comment about the books, and he cringed internally. 

After eating, he’d sit in traffic until he managed to get home. Then he’d file himself away in the small office that he’d turned into his mini-unsound proofed studio and worked on the songs some more. If he couldn’t sleep, he’d read one of the books he’d brought. Then he’d fall into bed and wait for the cycle to repeat.

After a month of the same routine, he started to get frustrated at the boxes piled in the house. He spent one weekend opening all the boxes from Chicago, finding places for things. He needed shelves; he was in dire need of storage space. He had his bed, his large furniture from his previous place in California, but most of the shelving had been built into the walls. Now he had books, and vinyl and potted plants and ornaments and a ton of junk, really, that he had no space for. He folded the flaps over the boxes, hiding the content and pushed them out of the way. He grabbed a knife from on top of his freshly uncovered coffee table and scored the tape of a new box. 

When he opened the flaps, he wished he’d picked another box. Inside was memorabilia, old backstage passes. They all had the logos of the printed tours on them. Beneath the tangle of lanyards was old merch that Patrick clearly hadn’t known what to do with. Some of it was posters. Patrick unraveled one and saw his own pale face shining back. He wondered what that Patrick would think of him. Infinity on High, with his sideburns and his trucker caps and his general dislike of any form of attention. Could that version of himself done what the last version had? Probably not, but then he hadn’t needed to. Patrick felt a sinking despair as he thought to that Patrick. He curled the poster back up and placed it in the box. He folded the flaps down and pushed it away. He needed a drink.  
He sat on his new porch, in the small backyard with two fingers of whiskey and looked down at his phone. He started to text. _Just moved back to LA. Need some furniture. Free to go shopping?_

That was an incredibly unPatrick thing to send, but he hadn’t seen Pete since the wedding, since that hook-up. Was it even a hook up? The sex had been good, but it hadn’t been right. He’d slinked back off to Chicago a day later, started dating Michael officially instead. Pete had texted him, said he understood, but Patrick hadn’t responded. In fact, Patrick hadn’t really spoken to Pete at all since then.

He was an _asshole._ It occurred to him then, fully. He’d slept with his best friend, and then not spoken to him since. Pete shouldn’t want anything to do with Patrick, who was really more trouble than he could possibly be worth. Patrick drained the dregs of his drink, closing his eyes to the burn. 

Then his phone vibrated next to him. He picked it up and saw Pete had already responded. _Text me your address. Pick you up tomorrow?_

Patrick’s house was technically already a mess, but only because of the maze of boxes. The only room that wasn’t flooded with boxes was his new little makeshift studio. His instruments and equipment had all made it out, but that was it. 

He slept in a room surrounded by boxes. The bed was a little too big for the room, and he was using another box as a nightstand, but he wasn’t in there long enough to care. He still had dreams, or nightmares. Working as Lukas and everything going wrong, getting hurt. He dreamt of being back at TipWell’s house, kept naked and locked up. He woke up uneasy, frightened to go back to sleep.

Pete looked the same when he pulled up outside Patrick’s house the next day. Happy to see Patrick, who climbed up into his SUV with little grace. When Pete smiled at Patrick, Patrick felt his own heartbeat flutter.

“I need some shelves,” Patrick said, instead of hello, which he meant to say first. “Uh, hi.”

“Hi.” Pete looked at Patrick, who yanked at the seatbelt and clipped it in a little harsher than necessary. “How you doing?”

“Good,” Patrick said. “I’m doing okay.” 

Pete drove out to a strip of shops that Patrick hadn’t seen before. He hadn’t actively sought out furniture stores which was no doubt part of the issue. Pete mentioned something about mid-century design and second-hand and Patrick just nodded along.

“Just so you know – I can afford brand new,” Patrick said, as they stepped out of the car. He had a hat pulled low, he was still re-adjusting to the LA weather and the unbearable sun. They walked into the second-hand store together, and Patrick looked around. There was a lot. It was all way too overwhelming.

“Yeah, but second-hand is more fun. What did you need again?”

“Mostly just shelving. It was all built into my last house. So I have all my shit, but nowhere to put it.” The store was filled mostly with couches, of velour and leather; pale wood painted up in chalky pastels. Patrick walked through the maze, looking around. 

“So are you back here for serious?” Pete sounded far away and when Patrick turned back to look for him, he’d taken a seat on one of the couches; an emerald green short pile velvet. Patrick laughed at Pete, spread out in all his casual black, patting a spot for Patrick. 

“Yeah.” Patrick sat beside him and finally looked at Pete. Shit, they’d fucked things up between them. They got too close at a wrong time in Patrick’s life, and Pete, with his lack-of-filter had said the worst thing. Then they’d hooked up and it had been good, but Patrick hadn’t felt right after. 

“You thinkin about the sex we had?”

“Shut up,” Patrick looked away, smiling. He stood up and put his hand out to yank Pete up from the couch. “There’s nothing here. Let’s try somewhere else.”

They tried a couple more stores, but Patrick just wanted basic and basic was so hard to find in somewhat-affluent LA. They went to a hardware store in the end and Patrick found some flat-packed shelving units. That was more of what he was after.

“How’s Bronx?” Patrick asked, when they stopped for something to eat. Pete’s gigantic car had come in useful once Patrick had bought and discovered how large the boxes were. He couldn’t imagine what they looked like; two little men, lugging massive cardboard boxes into the typical LA SUV.

“He’s good.” Pete’s smile was full and bright. It warmed Patrick up just to see it. Pete’s hand felt to his phone on the table and he was soon opening it up to show Patrick photos of his son. He was growing, no longer looking like a toddler, but caught in the cusp between toddlerhood and child. 

“What happened with Michael? I kinda thought you and him…” Pete broke off when he tucked his phone away. There was something else hidden in his tone, that Patrick couldn’t work out now, but would find out later, when he would link some random song lyrics to the moment. 

“He was so nice and he was so gentle and kind, but I ended up being so scared of ruining him because of myself that I just…ruined it.” Patrick laughed, mostly through embarrassment. They had parted amicably, and Michael was dating a woman now. Patrick was only a little hurt by it. “I think I just wasn’t ready for anything else.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m ready to just… get back in touch with music. Just producing for the time being, but I like that. There’s routine in it. I’m doing better.” Patrick shrugged his shoulder. He had so much guilt trapped inside him, for what he did to everyone around him. Like the shame, he didn’t think it would ever go away.

“You look better, and you’re buying furniture. That's the mundane shit that counts towards living a life.”

“You’re so fucking weird,” Patrick sighed, but he couldn’t stop smiling. It felt good being around Pete. Lighter. “I missed you.” 

“Even after everything that happened? In the hotel room?” Pete’s tone had changed and Patrick noticed. His own cheeks turned red at the memories. It was dumb to feel embarrassed over that when he’d done so much more soul-destroying shit.

“It was good. I liked it.” Patrick looked over Pete’s shoulder, rather than at him. “Felt like it was gonna happen at some point.”

“Yeah,” Pete agreed. “I liked it too.”

 

Pete had to go home after dropping Patrick off with his new shelving, to see to his kid and his dogs, but he promised Patrick that he would be around tomorrow afternoon, with beer and tools, to put together Patrick’s flat-packed furniture.

Patrick slept well. He fiddled with some music for a little while, curled up on the couch in his studio. It was mostly listening to the tracks he’d been helping a small band out with. Other people’s music was safe, it required creativity but not much else. He didn’t have to put any of his own soul into it. At the moment that was all still too sore. He was a better Patrick, but he still wasn’t completely healed.

Patrick was always cranky in the mornings. Always had been, and it wasn’t helped at the moment by the sheer number of boxes he had to navigate on his way to the shower. He went through his routine with bruised toes, ignoring his foggy head. He still couldn’t quite look at his body in the mirror; he still cringed because he still saw hands creeping over him, touching him; defiling him in all the ways they could afford. So he washed and he dressed without really looking at himself and then he felt better. He got in his car, to get into traffic, but then he was back into the safe confines of another studio, working on someone else’s music.

He had therapy mid-afternoon, so he cut the music session short and hopped in his car across town to sit on another person’s couch and lay everything out for them. He’d been honest with them about everything; the failures of his career, the prostitution, the inability to date someone normally afterward. It was on his therapist’s word that he’d officially decided to take a sabbatical from dating. His time with Michael had shown he really wasn’t ready. 

When he’d been in therapy in the past, he’d always come away feeling flat afterwards. Like he should have changed already, like he should be embarrassed to even be there, but now he just felt more settled into who he was. A weekly session always seemed to hit when his insecurities were at their largest and it calmed his mind down until the next one. 

He drove home, and he showered again and this time when he looked down at his body it felt more like his. Cohabitation. That’s what he’d been told to think about by his therapist for the past few weeks. The cohabitation of two souls, two life experiences in one body. As he dried himself off, as he pulled clothes on that were brand new, neither old Patrick or Lukas’, he checked his phone.

_On my way over._ Pete. He’d texted it five minutes ago. Something cool shot through Patrick’s body, relieving him of the hot tension. He finished getting dressed and hurried downstairs. The boxes they’d hoisted in from Pete’s car yesterday remained where they’d dumped them, as had every other box that Patrick had yet to unpack.

Pete was at the door fifteen minutes later with power tools, beer, and a lazy smile on his face. His head was covered by a beanie and he was wearing all black. Patrick opened the door and hated that his stomach fluttered at the sight. Instead he looked down at the plastic box in his hand.

“You own power tools.”

“I take my role as a dad serious,” Pete shrugged. He looked at Patrick’s mess of a small house and the boxes that created the mess. He looked slightly horrified. “Are all of these boxes full of shit to go on shelves?”

“No, only some,” Patrick said, closing the door behind Pete and leading him into the living room. “I just can’t face opening any of them.”

“Why’s that?” Pete placed everything down on Patrick’s already heavily cluttered coffee table and turned to look at him.

“There’s merch and shit… I find that hard to look at,” Patrick shrugged. “But I’m getting better. I’m in therapy. I went today.”

Pete raised an eyebrow. “You said you didn’t like therapy in the past.”

“I needed it more now.” Patrick looked down at the beer on the table rather than at his friend. “Shall we crack one open?”

They drank beer and didn’t speak about therapy for a while. Patrick wasn’t all that interested in DIY, so he let Pete take the lead. He played glamorous assistant, holding onto planks of wood and handing Pete nails and hammers, and a few hours later Patrick had shelving that looked almost as good as it had in the store. 

“We refurbed the house a little when I was a kid. I remember helping dad sand down the floorboards. I guess I associate this shit with being with my dad,” Pete said, when two shelving units were up and they’d paused to order food. Chinese, from a place that had shoved a flier in Patrick’s mailbox. “So I like it.”

Patrick remembered Pete’s parent’s house. It was this huge build in a fancy ass estate. He couldn’t picture it ever needing refurbishment, or Pete’s father doing the work himself, but he was hardly gonna argue with Pete about it. Instead he nodded his head, like he agreed. 

“I am sorry,” Pete said, changing the subject as he dug through his carton of noodles. He wasn’t looking at Patrick and his cheeks were red. Apologizing hadn’t ever come easy for either of them. “I’m sorry for how I reacted to the whole thing. The hitting you when I found out, to the things I said when our friendship got a little heated. The texts.”

“The sex was good though, right?” Patrick teased. That had been the one bright spark in what had mostly been a dark and muddled time.

“Oh yeah, for sure. But that wasn’t a sustainable relationship and when I spoke to Joe, he said you were with Michael.” Pete almost sounded hurt and Patrick almost felt bad for him until he got a grip. “So I just got over it.”

“I thought I could deal with a relationship, but I couldn’t. He couldn’t deal with me, either. But that’s why I moved back here. I’m done running away from my life. I want ownership of it. In the months after I stopped, I tried to take ownership of my body back from Lukas. I was done with him and what I’d done _as_ him, but therapy’s been teaching me that cohabitation is necessary now. Lukas and those experiences I had as him are just as much a part of me as the Patrick from before, I just have to learn to live with him.”

“How’s that going?”

“Better than pretending he didn’t exist. Easier here than in Chicago, where Lukas worked the most.” Patrick couldn’t remember the faces of any of the men, but he’d always remember how it felt. The money, the shame, the pain. The feeling dead apart from the moments on his knees, on his back. Only then did he almost feel alive again. “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore. I already had my therapy for the day.” 

“No worries, Patrick.” Pete tried to wink in the way he always did and failed. 

Pete spoke about his kid some more, mostly about how cool it was having a kid because you can play video games all day and no one judges, and you’re hardly ever lonely and Pete misses writing music and performing but maybe one day.

“If you ever want to send me anything I’d be down for it. I spend most of my time writing these days. I can hardly believe I went through a time when I wasn’t writing.”

“I didn’t want to send you anything because I knew you weren’t touching music,” Pete said, looking up. Patrick shrugged at him, feeling lightheaded from three bottles of beer.

“There’s room for it now,” Patrick said with a smile. 

 

Patrick went to bed almost as soon as Pete left that night. He’d had a good time, they’d put up some shelves and while the true test would be whether they were still standing in the morning, Patrick felt as if he’d been put back together again slightly too. Maybe it was the beer.

When he woke up, his day went the same as usual. He had a shower, he ate breakfast in the new kitchen from the one bowl that he’d unearthed from a box, and then he drove off to the studio to work with the enthusiastic band and their nearly finished album. He checked his own emails on his lunch. He had one from Pete titled _no rush…but you did say last night._

Pete was a scatty writer, not always cohesive. He’d write in sentences and then Patrick would string them together like beads to find the song. He scanned the words. Pete and all his wordiness had always been shitty with grammar and Patrick adjusted the glasses on his face to look closer. It was about as cohesive as normal, but Patrick could work with hat. He felt a shot of excitement at the thought of going home and working on something, on looking through all the old tracks and melodies he’d laid down that had been abandoned for so long. It had been a long time since he’d felt any genuine excitement for anything.

He got home earlier than usual and decided to try and clear some space in his new house. He opened easy boxes in the kitchen that contained no memories, but actual things that needed to go into cupboards and drawers. When that was done, he moved into the living room. He pushed books onto shelves, ornaments and photos of his family. Half his vinyl collection was still in Chicago, but the rest he pulled out and hoisted onto shelves. He only got a third of the way through when he ran out of space.

So, he figured he could hibernate in his office studio instead as a treat. He sat at the desk, opened Pete’s email as well as booting up his old files and just sat and worked. He found old lyrics Pete had sent him years ago, to see if the new stuff joined up. It was all a game to him, finding Pete’s words, making music that fused the two together. He only stopped when his eyes started to itch from staring at the screen too long.

Patrick finished the night off by watching trash tv and eating cereal from a freshly opened box. By the time he crawled into bed he was exhausted and fell asleep immediately. His nightmares were strong that night, full of possibilities of what could have happened in reality but never did. They felt real enough though, when he woke in a sweat, trying to regulate his breathing.

He couldn’t go back to sleep after that. It was…too hard. The idea of having to relive that warped form of reality for any longer held a genuine fear for him. He sat on his couch, unnerved, the TV on to try and shake it out of him. 

“Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be okay again,” Patrick said to Pete when he was next over. He hadn’t come for any reason, there was no excuse to build shelves, or take Patrick shopping. He hadn’t really mentioned the music either. They were just hanging out in Patrick’s new little house. “I feel like I’m doing all the right things; moving on in my career, going to therapy, but then the night comes, and the dreams seem to trigger me back to square one.”

“I never sleep,” Pete said. “I mean, I do now, but for a long ass time I didn’t, not unaided at least. And that shit wasn’t healthy at all. I think time helps, even if it sounds like bullshit.”

“I just don’t wanna run out of time,” Patrick shrugged. He could feel his eyes welling up, but he wiped them with the back of his hand and sniffed loudly, trying to distract himself and Pete from the emotion.

In the end, Pete helped Patrick sort through all the boxes, in the living room at least. Patrick was in a maudlin mood now, and Pete had bought alcohol with him. He figured he’d rather waste his afternoon drunk and poking through the past with one of the only guys that was there for the ride.

“Where is all of your old shit?” Patrick asked, grasping at a handful of lanyards. Old tour ones. He was never sure what to do with them. He had memories for mementos, he didn’t need a sweaty piece of fabric he wore around his neck for a month as proof it existed. 

“The stuff I can face looking at is at home. Some I have in the office. Mom and dad have some too. Mostly I look at myself and cringe, like serious?” Pete held out the Rolling Stone cover, the one where he’s all hair and brooding, and decidedly not wearing a shirt. Patrick meanwhile, was all chubby, kitted out in knitwear, sideburns and another hideous hat.

“I wish I could have protected that kid,” Patrick said, looking to himself on the cover. “Should’ve protected him from what would happen a few years down the line.”

“You’re going a little meta now, Patrick,” Pete said. “You didn’t know what route life was gonna take, or that things would end for us the way it did.”

“I knew it wouldn’t end well. For the last three years of the band we were picking up speed and running downhill. We had no choice but to crash into the brick wall at the bottom, but I—” Patrick stopped himself and started to breathe deep instead. Getting himself worked up didn’t help, therapy had taught him that too. He should pause when he felt himself slipping, breathe his way back to a sense of calm. “It’s just hard to see myself from the past, knowing what I did after.”

“You don’t give a name to it anymore,” Pete said quietly. “When I found out you used the term all the time, but now.”

“To cover the costs of touring, I turned to escorting” Patrick said, matter of fact. “I have to make it clinical or I go too low. I attach emotion to the words, I use them to describe how I feel about myself rather than the act. Cohabitation and separation are two big topics in therapy.”

“Man, we got fucking _heavy,_ ” Pete said, running a hand through his hair. He peered into the box some more, as Patrick started to untangle his fingers from the lanyards still laying in his hands. “See now this is cute.”

Patrick looked up to see Pete brandishing a home sewn doll shaped like Patrick. A gift from a fan. The hat on his head was knitted, his yellow-gold sideburns drawn onto the pale cotton with marker-pen. His cheeks had a faded pink blush and he’d opened a seam on his right leg.

“I’m a little broken,” Patrick said. It lightened the mood. 

“Fuck, dude. We all are.” Patrick still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with all of the leftover merch. He had the vinyls, the awards, all in the studio now, but this kind of shit, which was mostly a can of worms for his sanity, he was still at a loss. Instead, they stacked the boxes into corners, hidden from view instead. Patrick would approach them when he could, but not again, for a while at least.

When Pete decided to leave, Patrick followed him to the front door. He wanted to beg him to stay, because he didn’t want to be alone and Pete’s company was better than anything else in his life at the moment and it was better now, than it was before. He still been so deeply affected by his choices the last time Pete had tried to help.

“My thing is not being able to press play on the songs you sent me,” Pete said, with his hand resting lightly on the door. “That’s my can of worms.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that,” Patrick responded, and he pulled Pete into a hug. They were cheek to cheek, chest to chest. Patrick liked that with Pete, he didn’t have to slide onto his tiptoes to hug him. He felt Pete’s arms fall over his back, clutched tight in response, and closed his eyes briefly.

“Patrick,” Pete said, and nothing else.

 

Patrick felt like a narcissist when he first went to therapy, back when he was still in the band. He hadn’t felt like Pete, who had a mental illness and needed therapy to kept him somewhat straight. He didn’t feel deserving, like he was paying someone to listen to him when there was nothing wrong in the first place.

Now though, at twenty-seven, and with a very recent history of selling himself for sex, he laid back on his therapist’s couch and looked up at the still ceiling fan, encircling the orange halo light. He didn’t like eye contact during his sessions, he could be more honest to the fan than anyone else.

“I loved Pete through everything. He slept with girls that were too young and he broke their hearts, he popped more pills than what he was prescribed, and he let his mind go dark even when he knew it was bad for him. He’d trigger himself into feeling sicker. I was there the whole time. In his shadows because I was never what he needed in those moments. I crouched in his shadows, during the band, half ashamed to be up there on the stage with him because I never felt like I earned it, not really.”

“You associate that with your love for him?” his therapist was a woman, mid-fifties. Her hair was cut similar to Patrick’s mom, and it was a comfort before and after his session, when he would finally grant eye contact and smile at her, when he would arrange his next meeting. 

“I guess I just feel like even with all the harsh flaws he had, I never felt worthy. Then, suddenly when he found out what I was—I mean what I did.” Patrick corrected himself before his therapist could. “Then he wanted me. But even that was tarnished. He hit me when he found out, when he kissed me he said it was like kissing a whore. Now it feels different, but platonic maybe, I don’t know.”

“Do you feel worthy of his love now?”

“I don’t know. I think I pushed him off the pedestal in my mind, and when we did sleep together it felt good, you know? I wasn’t passive, and it was fun, but we haven’t really spoken about it.” Patrick was fiddling with his hands on his chest as he went through the motions. He tried not to think too hard about the time they’d fucked because he’d been trying to be a person without sex the past few months, and he didn’t want to go back to how messed up he was in those few months after his career break.

“Patrick, you can still be someone that goes out and pursues sex. As long as your boundaries are strong, as long as you don’t feel yourself slipping.”

“I never had a problem helping men get hard when I was working,” Patrick said, changing the subject, but not really. Talking this candid to a woman he half associated with his mother made his cheeks burn. “Michael couldn’t get it up even when I tried. I was never Lukas to him. I don’t know with Pete. I don’t know if he’d ever truly see me as Patrick either.”

 

 

“I’ve been hanging out with Pete.” Patrick’s arms were aching. He had Joe and Marie on Facetime, giving them a tour of his new house in LA. They oohed at all the correct places and didn’t tell him off for the state of the recording studio, which was his most lived in room and thus a total mess.

“Good hangs?” Joe asked. They also didn’t ask too many questions because they’d known it all, all of what happened between Patrick and Pete the last time around. 

“Yah, good. He took me furniture shopping and has been helping me unpack. It’s different to last time. He is. I am. It feels good.”

“Well I’m glad buddy, just don’t go rushing into anything crazy, alright?”

“I don’t rush anywhere,” Patrick laughed.

“I do know that much,” Joe winked.

  
  


“You ever think about it?” Patrick asked Pete down the phone later that night. He was lonely, and therapy had had him thinking back, to Joe and Marie’s wedding night, in the hotel with Pete. “When we fucked?”

“Uh sure.” Pete laughed. Patrick sensed hesitation in his friend’s voice and squeezed his face up in embarrassment. “Patrick, uh, I’m just putting Bronx to bed. I’ll call you back in a bit.”

“Oh shit, okay.”

Patrick cringed to himself for around twenty minutes before his phone started ringing. He picked it up and immediately started apologizing until Pete cut in.

“Dude, it’s alight. Chill a bit.” Pete’s laugh made Patrick calm down, if only a little. He put his hand on his fluttering chest and tried to soothe it into calming down. “I do think about it, but I’m trying to be responsible and grown up because I wasn’t in the aftermath.”

“We call it aftermath like I was assaulted,” Patrick mused. “But it was a choice I made.”

“I call it aftermath because it literally felt like… I dunno. You know in movies how when like a bomb goes off and someone survived but was standing too close and there’s a ringing in their ears and they can’t hear shit apart from the ringing?”

“I get that metaphor,” Patrick said. “It’s just…I was at therapy today and we were talking and I started thinking about everything that was between us during that time has kinda gone now, even if I feel better and our friendship seems stronger. There isn’t the nervous undertone making us want to screw.”

“I think the fact that we’re keeping it platonic right now helps,” Pete mused, and Patrick tried to pick clues out from the line, but he wasn’t sure how.

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“I went on a date last night with someone.” Patrick felt his heart sink slightly. “But I kept thinking that I’d be having way more fun with you in your new little house, getting drunk and building shelves.”

“When we had sex it felt like I was Patrick. I dunno. Not Lukas. Cohabitation is something I’ll have to get used to but I’m not sure I could ever go back to that again. To only being Lukas in bed. Last time I was with a man as Patrick he couldn’t get it up. But I bet if Lukas had been there it’d be alright.”

“Was it Michael?” Pete asked, but he must have known that anyway. “Because that doesn’t say anything about you. From experience…it just happens. It must have happened to you at one point.”

“Maybe,” Patrick shrugged, even if he knew that Pete wouldn’t be able to see him. “He wouldn’t let me help…he made it all awkward. Like it was me. But with you it was--”

“Fucking hot,” Pete interrupted. “The taste of your ass, the way you came around my fingers. He could’ve got you off no complaints. It didn’t have to be about his dick having a good time.”

“So you did like it,” Patrick said, even if he knew. He tucked his feet beneath himself, feeling his heartbeat pick up. “You called me a power bottom.”

“Lukas wasn’t one, right? So I know that was all you.”

“Now you’re just flirting,” Patrick laughed. “I hope it doesn’t make it awkward next time we see each other.”

“Well I mean, I have eaten your ass at this point and it hasn’t been awkward. I feel more nervous about the fact that I’m preparing to listen to the demos you sent over. I don’t know what that will awaken.”

Patrick was glad for the conversation break, for taking it away from conversations about Pete’s tongue and his own ass. He shifted on his couch. “Why are you so scared?”

“Because it might mean I want what I can’t have anymore. Might make me want the past back, you know?”

“The band back?” Patrick wasn’t stupid enough to think that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind, but even he wasn’t ready for that. He couldn’t face the public again, he would hold the fear of what he’d gone through coming out too much. Maybe someone took photos; a video, maybe there would be proof leaked. He couldn’t bare it. He’d whored himself out, it would be ignorant to think that wouldn’t come back to bite him.

“Yeah,” Pete said quietly, barely above a whisper.

“I think I’ll always want to write with you, whether that’s in the capacity of Fall Out Boy or not is irrelevant,” Patrick said, glad to take the reins on this conversation. He’d been the calming influence, the listener for years. He liked stepping back into those shoes, even just for a second or two.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments/kudos.

Patrick touched himself in the shower and thought of Pete. He hadn’t done it in forever. His sex drive had been non-existent; burnout from his previous occupation and scarred a little from what he’d tried with Michael, but he curled a fist over himself under the warm spray of the shower and touched himself. He thought of Pete. Pete in there with him, kissing him, crowding him against the tiled wall. When Patrick came, it was with his head bowed, his palm flexed to the wall. He looked down at his body and saw his own for once.

Patrick went to the studio at his usual time. They had finally finished the album, and already he’d had requests from other artists about working with them. He’d been settled for a while and he was happy about that. He worked hard, but he was happy to get back to his house and settle into the studio some more. 

He received a text from Pete as he was opening up old files and seeing if he liked any of them. He’d become pickier as he got older. He picked his phone up as he plucked an old bassline out of the demo to see how he liked it.

_“Listened to the demos – call me back.”_

Patrick paused the bassline, the rhythm now stuck in his head. He called Pete back, putting his phone on speaker as he pulled out the closest physical bass he had to him. 

“Hi Pete,” Patrick said absentmindedly, retuning the bass. “You text.”

“I heard the songs. The ones you sent me,” Pete said. “I got over my thing.”

“Oh that’s good,” Patrick laughed. “The songs are kinda rough. I’m kinda rough, you know, working on stuff that is…us and not other people.”

“I can tell you’re playing bass right now. You sound better than me and you’re not really trying.”

“Well.” Patrick didn’t know what to say. Everyone that knew their band knew that Pete’s talents did not lie in his skills in the bass. “Did you like the songs?”

“I haven’t heard a new fob song in forever, Patrick. It isn’t Fall Out Boy if you don’t work on it, now it sounds like us and it’s… I think I should probably talk to my therapist about this instead of you, but it just highlighted what I confessed to you.”

“And that’s okay,” Patrick said gently. “You’re allowed to want the band back.”

“And you?”

“Writing is the thing that has got me back on my feet, producing as well. I don’t know how I’d feel about actually officially being a band, but for now I’m ready to experiment.”

“We don’t tell the others?” 

“Mmm.” Patrick thought to Joe and Marie and how they’d feel about Patrick jumping headfirst back into what had driven him off track in the first place. “Not yet. It’s just creating, right?”

“Yeah I’m still in dad-mode, not sure I could handle fame again.” Pete sounded so earnest that Patrick laughed. Pete had craved the limelight just as much as he’d pushed it away.

“I hope you haven’t forgotten how much of a bitch I can be,” Patrick warned Pete. He’d tried to behave in recent months, and it had always been easier when he was working with bands that he wasn’t personally attached to, but he could be bossy and he wasn’t a pushover.

“It’s been so fucking long that I’m actually looking forward to it.”

Patrick hadn’t seen Pete in person in a couple of weeks. Not since their decision to write together, not since Patrick had asked Pete about their time together. When he did open the door to Pete on their first writing session his first thought was, _fuck,_ he did get his ass eaten by Pete on Joe and Marie’s wedding night. He’d come before he was fucked and had been completely unrepentant about it. 

He was red, probably, which was why Pete was looking at him curiously. Lukas had gone through a lot more than simply having his ass eaten and he hadn’t blushed like a virgin, at least, not unless he was paid to.

“Hi Pete,” Patrick said, pitched a little higher than normal. He cleared his throat and invited Pete further inside.

They immediately went to Patrick’s makeshift studio. Patrick had a couch in the corner that Pete sat on and Patrick just hovered for a time. He pulled at the hem of his shirt, tugging it down. He felt all awkward, his toes shuffling on the wood flooring.

“What’s up, Patrick?” Pete asked, watching curiously. “You gonna show me some songs or do you wanna talk about something else?”

Patrick hesitated. “You know what the other thing is?”

“Of course I do. I haven’t thought about much else, but let’s work on what we said we would and deal with _the other thing_ afterward.”

“Alright.” Patrick smiled. He launched himself into his computer chair and booted up his work.

Patrick hadn’t written anything in the time he was prostituting. It had become something that he was ashamed of, something that he felt he was no longer worthy of doing, but now in recovery, he been doing it nonstop after. He had a backlog of demos, of chords and basslines and drum loops that hadn’t seen the light of day, that hadn’t been shown to anyone. They all fit in the category of _before Lukas_ and _After._ He found it easier dwelling in the After. He was only interested in showing Pete those too.

They worked silently together. Pete sat with headphones on, listening to beats and melodies and all the stuff that Patrick had drained from his head in recent weeks. Patrick meanwhile found old emails from Pete; fragments of lyrics dotted all over the place. He always liked the fact that he didn’t have to wait for Pete’s approval; more often than not, he got the meaning right the first time around.

“These are good, Patrick. They’re amazing. Are these all recent?”

“Mostly, yeah.” Patrick nodded his head. He was like a puppy waiting for approval. He wasn’t normally, but he could still feel the undercurrent of tension filling the room.

 

They stopped for something to eat, which meant Patrick rummaging in his refrigerator for something to feed them. He could cook, was capable of it, but with Pete it was always so easy to fall back onto take out instead. Patrick needed some time away, somewhere to break his head away from the space with Pete. He was already falling under the weird spell he had with him last time, with the words and the comfort and the idea that the sex with him had been so good.

He felt like a middle-aged woman, fanning herself down from a hot flush as he waited in his foyer for the take out. His heart was racing more now than it had in the room with Pete. It was so silly. He’d done so much filthy shit in the past with men. He’d even fucked Pete at this point, and he hadn’t felt so overcome with emotion. And this was Pete. His friend of God knows how many years.

Patrick opened the door to the delivery guy before he could approach and tried to hand his tip money over with as much grace as he could muster. Then he was back inside and turning the corner to his studio once more.

Pete was playing with his phone when Patrick came back into the room, but he put it away when he saw Patrick and flashed a smile at him. He helped Patrick carry the food in and then touched his finger tips to Patrick’s burning cheek.

“Why you all flustered?”

“I’ve become a prude and frigid,” Patrick said. He opened the boxes of noodles and shredded veg to occupy himself. “I don’t know. I’ve reversed the Lukas effect when I’m with you.”

“Oh I doubt that,” Pete teased. His hand was light on Patrick’s hip, only briefly, before it moved away again. Patrick looked up at him and saw genuine embarrassment on Pete’s face.

They ate their food in relative silence, with old demos playing in the background. Patrick felt a little more calmer for food in his stomach. He chewed and he swallowed and let Pete guide the conversation. They always stuck to safe topics, Bronx, parents, the last vacation he took with his kid. Patrick felt himself calming down as he listened to Pete talk. 

Patrick cleared the take out away when they were done. It was the only room in the house that he kept somewhat tidy and it gave him another few minutes away from Pete. Things had changed again. He knew something would happen, after the conversation they’d had. 

When Patrick came back into the studio, Pete had turned the music off and had cleared his work away. In his hands, he still held his pocket-sized notebook. He looked up a Patrick and smiled.

“So now for part two of our day…” Pete said, waving one hand in the air. “The other thing you wanted to talk about.”

“Do you still want me?” Patrick said and _Christ_ that came out lame. Patrick didn’t mean to sound pathetic. He took a seat beside Pete on his couch and closed his eyes. Pete would give him time to get his words out correctly. “Like, me as in Patrick the fucking idiot that escorted and got confused and is now a bit broken. You know? Do you really want that?”

“You know I’m always gonna have you beat on fucked up brains, right?” Pete teased, but he quickly sobered up. He placed a hand on Patrick’s wrist. “I know you need a lot of healing time, but I think we’re helping each other and I want you. You know that, dude. It’s why I reacted so shitty the first time around.”

“What, when you bought me for the night and then hit me for it?” Patrick laughed and maybe he was healing if he could laugh at the situation. It was fucking absurd if nothing else. 

“We did have great sex, that one time. I don’t think it’d be a fluke,” Pete said, and Patrick felt his heart flutter in his chest; felt his mouth thicken. He hadn’t felt that desire in forever. He looked up into Pete’s dark eyes and smiled, leaning in.

They were kissing before Patrick could even take in what they were doing. He shifted on the couch, so that his knees were tucked to Pete’s side and Pete’s own hands were reaching up, touching Patrick’s face, hands framing his cheeks gently. Patrick didn’t know what to touch, so instead fumbled his fingers around the notebook still resting in Pete’s lap.

Patrick hadn’t kissed anyone in months now, but it was bringing a tingling sensation back to his lips, igniting the need to be touched. He hadn’t craved it in a long time, recovering from burn out and acute PTSD from his months selling himself, but now suddenly Pete’s tongue was in his mouth and his warm hands were moving from Patrick’s face to lightly rest against his chest and it was doing something to him.

When they broke away for breath, Patrick counted the seconds. He thought Pete would say something, would ruin the moment like he had the first time they kissed, but he was silent. Patrick was looking down at Pete’s flushed mouth, his hands unfolding from the notebook in his hands to touch Pete’s face, stroking fingers lightly down his cheek, brushing his stubbled jawline. 

“You haven’t said anything dumb yet,” Patrick admitted after a few more seconds. “I keep waiting.”

“I’m always gonna be an idiot, but not _that_ idiot. I’ve been working on myself,” Pete said. “Like you have.”

“We’ve been working on our friendship,” Patrick responded. He wanted to be closer so he brushed the notebook from his lap and climbed; threw one leg over Pete’s lap until he was sitting in it. No bad memories came back; no other man in another life broke through his memories to mock him. It was still just him and Pete.

“Take it slow.” Pete’s hands, which had been pressing against Patrick’s chest, now fell over his hips. Patrick just sat like that for a time, on his old best friend and bandmates lap, and didn’t freak out. They’d already had the drama in their professional and personal relationship, hadn’t they gone through the worst?

“We’re supposed to be working on music,” Patrick said, but he rested his head against Pete’s and smiled. When Pete breathed in, he could feel it, he put his hands on Pete’s chest and felt the constant beat of his heart. “I don’t want to ruin things.”

“We’ll use our brains this time,” Pete said. His hands fell to Patrick’s wrists, looping fingers gently over them. “You’ll tell me if it’s too much and we’ll stop.”

“It won’t be,” Patrick said. He would be alright. He hadn’t wanted any form of sex since…well since his time with Pete. There had been Michael, of course, and Patrick had wanted him, but it had felt like too much of a performance and when Michael couldn’t _perform_ it just upset Patrick even more. But this was Pete. The newer one. The kinder one.

“Patrick.”

“Enough,” Patrick said, partly to himself, although when he felt Pete’s fingers tighten over his wrists and his breathing hitch, he shook his head. “There’s a line drawn, alright? This starts now. Here.”

“However you want it,” Pete said. His hand lifted to Patrick’s cheek, his thumb pressing down to bone. The sudden roughness sent a tingling sensation down Patrick’s spine. “Tell me what you want and we can do it.”

“I need control,” Patrick said without thinking. Last time he’d felt like Patrick, hadn’t he? With Pete it had been nearly all Patrick and zero Lukas, but he couldn’t be sure. “I’m not used to it as Patrick.”

“I know,” Pete said gently. “We can work through it. Whatever you need.”

Patrick kissed Pete to confirm. Hard and wet. There was no clash of tongues or bumping of teeth. It was smooth. For all the many men that Patrick had kissed, Pete had a shit-load of experience too. They were both goddamn experts. 

Music was still playing in the background, just a looped beat that Patrick had played around with, but he could still just about hear it over the sound of them kissing, over the way his own heart was pumping blood so loud he could hear it in his ears. 

He pulled away and put his fingers over Pete’s mouth, his lips spit-slick, his skin warm and bristled with stubble. Patrick rolled his hips upwards, pressing their crotches against each other. He thought back to their last time _their only time._ Patrick had come from having his ass eaten, from Pete fingering him. He’d been fucked after, when he was loose-limbed and his head was lazy. 

“I was supposed to ride you last time, but you didn’t let me,” Patrick said with a tease. “You know I’m kinda bossy. Don’t like not getting my way.”

“Fuck yeah,” Pete said. Patrick watched him blink, like he was trying to take it in. “Take what you need, babe.”

“Don’t call me that,” Patrick said, but he liked it. _Babe._ It sounded sweet, lovable. It’s what he’d called exes in the past, what they had called him. “But do.”

Pete laughed, his hands slid this time to Patrick’s hips and he squeezed. Patrick was still pretty slim, but he hadn’t ever lost the puppy fat that clung to his hips. He didn’t mind. Pete hadn’t minded much last time, either.

The next time they kissed it seemed more passionate, or heavier. Patrick could feel his sex drive relaunching as he sat there in Pete’s lap. Pete’s hands wandered over Patrick’s hips, beneath his shirt, grazing Patrick’s skin lightly, but other than that he seemed happy to just sit there and let Patrick set the tempo. 

Patrick moved his hand down, kissing Pete and popping open his jeans. Pete wasn’t wearing a belt which made it easier. He pulled down the zipper and slid his hand inside. Pete was still soft, but when Patrick wrapped his fingers around him, he started to spring to life. 

“I can make it good,” Patrick said, pulling his mouth away from Pete’s. His old tricks were starting to come back. “You know that, right?

“We’ve done this before, Patrick. I know how good it’ll be,” Pete said, but he was so still, like he was happy to sit there. His hands clung tight to Patrick’s hips as Patrick slowly worked his hand over him. “We doing this with spit, or what?”

“I could take it,” Patrick said, his weird competitive side coming out. He didn’t want to though. He had lube. In his bedroom. Untouched since he moved in. He slid from Pete’s lap and lifted a finger in the air. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

He was excited as he skipped from one room to another. When had he last been excited about sex? Even with Pete at the wedding, it had half been an unravelling of tension, half being pissed about an apparent girlfriend. Patrick hadn’t really been in the mindset to enjoy it anyway, even if he had.

The lube was new. He’d thrown all his old stuff out, but he pinged back the cap and stood in his bedroom for a moment thinking things over. He wanted to sleep with Pete. Had wanted it for so so long and was ready. He could enjoy now and feel safe in the aftermath.

Pete had his shirt off by the time Patrick came back into the room. He was still sitting on the couch, and Patrick’s music was still playing quietly, just loud enough to block out complete silence.

“Hi,” Patrick said, suddenly feeling shy. Pete waggled his finger over at Patrick and Patrick laughed, climbing his way over. “I got the lube.”

“Good.” Pete kissed Patrick like he’d been gone longer. It was more frantic now. His tongue pressed deeper into Patrick’s mouth, his hands moved from Patrick’s hips, up to his throat. He didn’t squeeze but his fingers were a firm weight around his neck, it made Patrick shiver. Wanting to be possessed by Pete had been his thing, right? What he thought about when he was being used.

When they broke away, Patrick pulled his own shirt off and watched as Pete stared at his bare chest. They weren’t the same. Patrick was on the slimmer side of his life, but abs were non-existent, and he was very pink and pale. Pete still looked at him like he wanted him, he still pressed a dark hand to the centre of Patrick’s chest, hand against his heart.

“You ever feel…not like you, just let me know, Patrick.” Patrick understood what Pete was saying. Lukas wasn’t invited this time, he couldn’t make an appearance, or if he did, Pete didn’t want to sleep with him. Just Patrick. He just wanted Patrick.

They kissed again and Patrick leant a little more forward, until their noses bumped, until he was losing his breath. He felt almost giddy as his hand slipped into Pete’s pants again. He moved his hand up and down, watching Pete’s expression, his other hand curled over Pete’s shoulder, tips of his fingers dipping into taut muscle. Pete seemed happy enough to be jacked off for a while and Patrick liked watching. He used his thumb to press down firmly. 

“I want you to fuck me,” Patrick said, and then paused as Pete moaned, maybe at the comment, maybe at the idea. “I want to fuck myself on you.”

“I’ll let you,” Pete said, his own hands slipping to Patrick’s belt. He unbuckled it and then stripped them both bare and then spent a great deal of time staring at Pete’s dick. It was hard, darkening. Patrick wanted to stuff it into his mouth, but kissed Pete instead.

He fumbled a hand over Pete’s dick, stroking him, and felt Pete’s hand do the same to him. He could come like his probably, riding their dicks together. This would feel like _making love_ he was certain. But he didn’t want that. He pulled away and tried to catch his breath. Pete’s hand squeezed firm at his base and his eyesight wavered.

“Condom,” Patrick said, slapping Pete’s arm lightly. He’d grabbed one when he’d picked out the lube. It lay on the couch beside them and Patrick picked the foil up and opened it with his teeth. It was like muscle memory. When he’d been Lukas, he’d liked to put it on the clients, so that he knew it was on properly, so there was no chance for any tampering. He did it with Pete now, smoothing it down over Pete’s dick. Then he grabbed the lube and poured a liberal amount over Pete’s dick. He smoothed it messily with his hand, until his rubber covered cock glistened with the slick. 

Patrick turned so his back was to Pete’s chest, so that his ass was tucked neat in Pete’s lap. He could feel Pete’s dick; hard and wet against the base of his spine and it sent butterflies shooting. He closed his eyes and lifted up onto his bracketed knees, either side of Pete’s legs. He let Pete guide himself. Patrick hadn’t been fingered or prepped but he didn’t need it. A slick wet dick was enough and he wanted to be tight; wanted Pete to feel his tightness. 

He rocked his head back onto Pete’s shoulder as he felt Pete’s dick press against him. Shit, he hadn’t been fucked in months. He had loved it at one point, before he’d used it as his selling point. But there was something in the vulnerability of his body opening up, of him taking another man inside him that could leave him shuddering. He could feel it building inside him again. 

When the tip of Pete’s dick was engulfed inside of him, he felt himself come alive. His back was arched, shoulders pressing into Pete’s chest as he took back control. He sat straight, so that he could control the movement with his own thighs, but he sensed Pete kind of flop behind him, as he fell against the warm leather couch. His hands came to fall on Patrick’s hips. Not to help, but just to hold. 

Patrick sunk down slow, until his ass cheeks were flush with Pete’s thighs, until he could feel the slide of Pete’s heavy dick all the way inside. He was being held open by the girth, his body which had been so accustomed to the sensation at one point, acted like it was a new treat. He heard the groan slide from the back of his throat and shudder past his lips. 

“You’re good, Patrick. You feel so good.” Pete’s teeth sunk down into the side of Patrick’s neck, his arms folding over Patrick’s stomach, reining him in closer. Patrick couldn’t really ride in this position, could do nothing but let Pete pulse inside him and wriggle to get more friction. He loved it, it was almost too much pressure, like dialling it up to eleven before he’d really got going, but Pete offset it with the gentleness of his touch. 

“Don’t fight it,” Pete said after a while, his hand almost scooping over Patrick’s stomach to tug on his dick. He realized how tense he’d been, his body tight and his ass probably acting like a gigantic cock ring for Pete. 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said, laughing. He pulled Pete’s hand from his dick, just to allow himself to calm down first. 

“Don’t apologize.” Pete’s lips were on the side of his neck again. His hand moved up Patrick’s chest, resting over his nipple. Patrick turned, so their lips touched. He moved his own arm up to slide around in Pete’s hair. He grabbed fistfuls of it, just to try and centre himself. 

Patrick started to move again, writhing on top of Pete. Being in control meant the slow bubbling pleasure in his stomach could build. He didn’t feel threatened or cheap. He didn’t think much of anything, just that it felt good. Pete’s hand didn’t move to grasp his dick again, but instead wrapped from beneath his thigh, hooking it over his elbow.

Pete had more movement now, more ease to thrust and Patrick allowed it. From the angle Pete was fucking him at, he couldn’t stop himself from rolling back, his head slipping back onto Pete’s shoulder. He allowed himself to be fucked. Pete had leverage, his one hand under Patrick’s thigh, the other draped over his chest, pulling Patrick tight to him as his pushed inside. 

“I got you,” Pete said in his ear, as if he sensed Patrick thinking about fighting it. He nodded his head in acceptance, his body draped over Pete’s body. He felt himself shiver as Pete shifted him, using his arm over Patrick’s stomach to use that as leverage. 

He wouldn’t ever be the tightest Pete had had, he would take longer to really excite, some things would always be off limits. Those were the hesitant things worrying at the back of his mind. But right now, Pete’s teeth were grazing his neck, and the length off a hard wet dick was sliding in and out of Patrick. 

“Getting fucked by you is better than I imagined,” Patrick said, and heard the moan Pete gave. He squeezed around the length in his ass, working his hand over his dick. He’d wanted it to be slow and languid, but he was happy to give himself over. He wanted to come, with Pete’s teeth marks in his neck and his ass clenched wet and tight. He twisted his wrist, in his favored way and started to come. 

Pete had stilled his movements as Patrick let go. He was rooted inside, Patrick was pretty much sitting on his balls, but Pete stayed solid as a rock the whole time. He didn’t come, he didn’t thrust. In fact, he gently moved his hand from beneath Patrick’s thigh, letting his leg drop down again. 

Patrick lifted so that Pete’s hard dick slid from his well fucked ass. He moved in Pete’s lap, so that he was facing him, so that his knees were pressed either side of Pete’s hips, so that Pete’s dick was trapped between their two bodies. He could feel the length of it, shiny, hot and wet against his stomach. 

He pushed his tongue into Pete’s mouth, resting his hands on Pete’s cheeks. He could feel the tautness of Pete’s body, still straining with the need to come. As they kissed, Patrick’s desire to please him became palpable in his mouth. He just wanted it to be good for Pete, wanted to be good _for_ him. 

Pete had a tight grip on Patrick’s hips, as if that was the only thing keeping him from coming apart. Patrick moved his hand, pushing it between their bodies and sneaking his fingers around Pete’s length. It excited him to feel Pete, to touch him and know that it was this dick that was inside him moments before, that made him come. 

“Would you like to come in my mouth?” Patrick asked. He could feel the eagerness burning within. He’d come, but he was still ready to help Pete along. He was starting to feel excited about the idea of pleasing Pete, of filling his mouth with the thick length. He had given so many blow jobs, people had overpaid for the pleasure of that alone. He was good.

“That would be awesome,” Pete choked out, his voice a little shaky. Patrick slid from his lap and down onto his knees. Patrick settled himself down, either side of Pete’s legs, and gave a quick glance up at Pete from under his eyelashes. That set all men off. Pete’s shudder gave him away. Patrick saw as Pete moved to put his hand on the back of Patrick’s head, but then stopped at the last moment.

“Do it. I want this,” Patrick told him. He leaned forward over Pete’s lap, finally feeling the curling knot of Pete’s fingers in his hair. He tugged the condom off and tossed it to the side. He pressed his lips to the underside of Pete’s cock and looked up. Pete’s thighs clenched either side of his head as he cupped gentle fingers around his length.

Pete’s hands were still hesitant on him, but Patrick knew he wouldn’t last long and they had time – he hoped they had time. He lifted up and opened his mouth over the head of Pete’s dick, taking the length into the warm pool of his mouth. He tasted like latex, like sweat and a little of something else, Patrick was excited to seek it out. 

He bobbed his head gently, never really going hard. He didn’t want to deep throat and he didn’t want aggression, but he liked that Pete gained more confidence in tugging on his hair, in pulling Patrick backward and forward onto his dick. 

He rested the knuckles of one hand against Pete’s balls lightly and used the other hand to wrap tight around the base. His cheeks were hollowed, and he was dribbling down his chin, saliva coating Pete’s dick. He’d always made noises when he gave head. He liked it. He liked it even before it became this monotonous post solo-show routine to fuel his tour. 

Patrick knew it was coming to an end, by the way Pete’s moans had become more erratic and his hands become painful in his hair. It had nothing on the actual moment his mouth filled though. He swallowed it down, only releasing Pete’s dick when it started to soften between his lips. 

When he looked up at Pete, he had his eyes shut, his whole body slightly limp with his release. His hand were still in Patrick’s hair, holding him close. Patrick laughed to himself and rested his cheek down against Pete’s thigh.

 

Afterward, they watched a movie in Patrick’s living room curled up together, with their clothes pulled on and their music and notebooks packed away. They’d held hands and kissed softly occasionally, but they didn’t talk about what they’d done. Patrick just wanted to _feel;_ the currents of waves and affection from Pete to himself. They must have made it up to his bedroom, but he couldn’t recall it now. 

Pete was still there when Patrick woke up the next morning. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept well, at least not with another person beside him. He couldn’t even remember how they got into his bed. 

Now he was being spooned. Pete was tucked right up behind him, his arm over Patrick’s waist, his legs intertwined with Pete’s. This wasn’t normal for him and yet he couldn’t remember the last time he felt this relaxed.

“When you sleep, damn you sleep.” Pete’s voice was a mumbled softness in his ear. He was awake and probably had been a long time. It was one of his quirks.

“You remember from tour?” flashbacks flooded Patrick’s eyes, segments across the years, flashes of tour buses and bunks and always the last to wake. And that claustrophobic feeling of brotherhood and friendship that couldn’t ever be lost, not really.

“Yeah.” Pete seemed lost in it too. He let himself feel Pete’s arms around him, the feel of his chest pressed up against his back. He’d had this as Lukas of course, but at this point his client’s hands would have taken to wandering, claiming Patrick’s body and seeking out more pleasure just to make sure they got every cent they could from him. 

Patrick must’ve tensed under the memories, because Pete’s hands started to move in a gentle circular motion over his stomach, soothing him. Patrick touched his fingers lightly and then turned.

“Morning,” Patrick said. He felt a smile pick at his lips when he saw Pete, lazy eyes slightly crinkled. His stubble had grown in darker since the night before and Patrick traced the edge of his jaw with his thumb, feeling the coarse bristles.

“So last night,” Pete started to say before a smiled slipped over his features. “Last night was amazing, right?”

“I think so, yeah.” Patrick felt the hesitation skip behind his words and he tried to gather himself. “I can’t remember the last time I woke up next to someone and felt safe.”

“Not even with Michael?” Pete’s face folded in at Patrick’s words, as if they’d genuinely hurt him. Patrick cupped a hand over the side of his warm face.

“We never really made it this far.”

“And you trust me after... After what happened before.” Patrick didn’t hear the inflection in his tone, but he sensed the question in it anyway.

“I trust you. It’s different now.” Patrick closed his eyes. He had music he wanted to show Pete, and more maybe. And breakfast too. He was fucking hungry. He leaned forward and kissed Pete, because he could, because he wanted to and that mattered now. 

Pete made them breakfast because he was better at it than Patrick. He had a kid after all, and his _“daddy instincts kicked in.”_ Something Patrick told him never to say again when he mentioned where Pete’s fatherly dick had been the night before.

Patrick felt firmly hungover and more than a little vulnerable after the night before. He was a grown man now, and he’d lived a fucking life, but he couldn’t help the blush that tainted his cheeks when he caught sight of the couch they’d fucked on the night before, when he retrieved his phone from his studio. 

“I think I’m always gonna be a little bit fucked up, you know? With what I did,” Patrick said over his sunny side up eggs. Pete had a dishcloth draped over his shoulder and Patrick hadn't been part of a domestic scene like this in a very long time. He almost wanted to cry, but he’d done so much of it recently and these were happy tears. He was fucking joyous.

“I dig that. If you dig me.”

“Dig you?” Patrick watched Pete take a seat beside him. 

“Me and my fucked up head is well noted, Patrick. I’d rather not go there again, but you’re always gonna be there for me, right?”

“Always.” Patrick smiled. He put a hand out on the table, between their two plates of eggs and waited for Pete to rest his on top. “I guess we’ve got a lot to discuss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this little sequel :)


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